J.O.P. v. DHS Settlement: Protections, Exceptions, May 2026

The J.O.P. v. DHS settlement is a nationwide class action agreement, approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on November 25, 2024, that protects the asylum rights of people who were classified as unaccompanied alien children (UACs) when they entered the United States. It restores USCIS’s authority to decide their asylum cases and blocks the government from applying the one-year filing deadline to them, even after they turn 18 or reunite with a parent. If you filed your asylum application on or before February 24, 2025, and had a prior UAC determination, you are likely covered. The settlement is currently set to expire on May 27, 2026, so acting on its protections now matters.

Who Counts as a Class Member

You are a J.O.P. class member if all four of these were true on or before February 24, 2025:

You were previously determined to be an unaccompanied alien child by CBP, ICE, or in certain cases EOIR.
You filed an asylum application with USCIS that was still pending.
On the date you filed with USCIS, you were either 18 or older, or you had a parent or legal guardian in the United States available to provide care and physical custody.
USCIS had not yet issued a decision on the merits of your application.

People with prior UAC determinations who had not yet applied could still join the class by filing with USCIS on or before February 24, 2025.¹ That filing window has now closed, so no new class members can join.

What the Settlement Protects

The settlement undoes a 2019 USCIS policy that had stripped former UACs of two protections Congress gave them in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA): initial USCIS jurisdiction over their asylum cases, and an exemption from the one-year filing deadline. Under the 2019 memo, aging out of UAC status or reuniting with a parent meant USCIS would reject the case and push it into adversarial immigration court proceedings.²

USCIS Decides Your Case

USCIS must exercise initial jurisdiction over a class member’s asylum application and decide it on the merits. This applies even if you are in removal proceedings and even if an immigration judge previously ruled that USCIS lacked jurisdiction. Asylum officers adopt prior UAC determinations made by CBP or ICE without a new factual inquiry, as long as the determination was in place when you first filed for asylum.³

USCIS cannot defer to jurisdiction determinations from immigration judges or the Board of Immigration Appeals, including determinations issued under the BIA’s decision in Matter of M-A-C-O-.²

No One-Year Filing Deadline

USCIS will not apply the one-year asylum filing deadline to a class member’s application. If you had a UAC determination when you filed, the deadline does not apply.³

Retraction of Past Rejections

USCIS agreed to review and retract adverse jurisdictional determinations issued on or after June 30, 2019. The implementing memo required USCIS to retract determinations where the asylum office had improperly deferred to EOIR by July 29, 2025, and to retract determinations involving individuals taken into ICE custody before filing by September 26, 2025. If USCIS believed a prior rejection should stand, you should have received notice and 30 days to submit a rebuttal.³

What Happens in Immigration Court

Many class members are also in removal proceedings, and the settlement requires DHS to cooperate rather than fight your effort to keep the asylum case with USCIS.

In your removal proceedings, the DHS trial attorney will not argue that USCIS lacks jurisdiction over your asylum application. DHS will generally join or not oppose your motions for a continuance, for administrative closure where controlling law in that jurisdiction allows it, or for placement on the EOIR status docket so USCIS can decide the case.⁴ If DHS files no response to a properly served motion, the settlement itself serves as evidence of non-opposition.

If you already have a final removal order, ICE will not carry out the removal while USCIS is still deciding your asylum application. If USCIS grants asylum, DHS will generally not oppose your motion to reopen the removal case.¹ An April 23, 2025 court order reinforced this, finding that removing a class member before USCIS issues a final merits determination violates the settlement.

The One Exception: Adult Detention Before Filing

The settlement contains a single carve-out. USCIS may find it lacks initial jurisdiction if you were placed in adult immigration detention (meaning you were 18 or older) before you filed your asylum application. This is the only ground on which USCIS can refuse to decide a class member’s case on the merits.¹

Even then, the asylum office must send a written notice explaining its reasoning. You have 30 days to rebut the finding, or 33 days if the notice arrives by mail. If your rebuttal succeeds, USCIS must retract the rejection within 30 days of receiving it.⁵ Class members denied under this exception still get certain additional protections specified in the settlement.

How to Prove You’re a Class Member

When filing motions in immigration court and asking DHS to join or not oppose them, you need to show you are covered. Any one of the following is enough:

A copy of the receipt for an asylum application filed under the USCIS initial jurisdiction provision.
A copy of the asylum application cover letter sent to USCIS, together with a screenshot from the USCIS Case Status Online tool showing that USCIS accepted the application for processing.
A declaration under penalty of perjury stating that you were determined to be a UAC, filed an asylum application with USCIS that has not been decided on the merits, and were either 18 or older or had a parent or legal guardian in the U.S. at the time of filing.

DHS may accept other evidence of class membership at its discretion.⁴

If the Government Violates the Settlement

If DHS opposes your motion for administrative closure, ICE tries to remove you before USCIS decides your case, or the government otherwise ignores the agreement, you or your attorney can report it to class counsel. Complete the noncompliance form (available in English and Spanish from the National Immigration Project) and email it to class counsel at DG-JOPClassCounsel@goodwinlaw.com. Class counsel and the government will then attempt to resolve the issue.¹

Why the May 2026 Date Matters

The settlement is set to terminate on May 27, 2026. Class counsel has asked the court to extend that date, but the outcome is uncertain. If the agreement expires on schedule, DHS’s obligations to join or not oppose your motions, to hold off on removal while USCIS decides the case, and to follow the settlement’s other procedural safeguards will end.⁶

The underlying TVPRA rule giving USCIS initial jurisdiction over UAC asylum applications is federal statute and stays in place regardless.⁷ What ends with the settlement are the specific procedural guardrails it created: DHS non-opposition in immigration court, mandatory retraction of adverse determinations, and the enforcement channel through class counsel. If you have not yet secured administrative closure, a stay of removal, or a merits decision from USCIS, move on those requests well before the termination date.

1
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. J.O.P. v. DHS Final Class Notice
2
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. J.O.P. v. D.H.S. Settlement Agreement
3
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. JOP UAC Procedures Memo
4
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. J.O.P. v. D.H.S. Settlement Agreement
5
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS JOP UAC Procedures Memo
6
National Immigration Project. J.O.P. v. DHS
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1158 – Asylum